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> It seems that M4 chips can’t virtualise any version of macOS before 13.4 Ventura 13.4 was released on May 18, 2023. That's actually not very far into the pas

> It seems that M4 chips can’t virtualise any version of macOS before 13.4 Ventura 13.4 was released on May 18, 2023. That's actually not very far into the past. Anyway, what would be the most common use cases for this? And how common are those?

trws 2y ago
CI is the big one, or similar testing against older versions for backwards compatibility. Usually good enough to just compile for it on MacOS, but sometimes we get a surprise in a third party library or something that only shows up on an older release.
deathhand 2y ago
Dev environments, and testing. Macs are the best at virtualizing macs.(look up hackintosh to see how many hoops must be jumped through on non mac hardware)
- talldayo 2y ago
  You don't need a Hackintosh to virtualize a Mac - you can actually download the MacOS image directly from Apple and boot it right into QEMU with the proper configuration. I've used a few scripts over the years that could have an OSX image running on Linux in less than 15 minutes.
  - kelvinjps10 2y ago
    Any tutorial?
    - mmerlin 2y ago
      https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM https://github.com/Coopydood/ultimate-macOS-KVM https://github.com/Coopydood/ultimate-macOS-KVM https://github.com/notAperson535/OneClick-macOS-Simple-KVM https://github.com/notAperson535/OneClick-macOS-Simple-KVM https://github.com/topics/osx-kvm https://github.com/topics/osx-kvm
grishka 2y ago
If you're building macOS apps, it's common to want to test them on all system versions you support. Especially so considering Apple's attitude towards backwards compatibility.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  Are there any Macs that can run 13.4 but can't run 13.5?
  - fwip 2y ago
    I don't think so, but no Mac before 2016 can run 13.x: https://everymac.com/systems/by_capability/maximum-macos-supported.html https://everymac.com/systems/by_capability/maximum-macos-sup...
    - wtallis 2y ago
      Virtualizing an older ARM version of macOS was never going to be sufficient to QA x86 applications running on older Intel Macs. For that, you'll always want real x86 hardware.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- alanfranz 2y ago
  And yet Monterey is EOL. Very few apps still support it. I wonder if it's just something that wasn't tested exactly for that reason.
  - grishka 2y ago
    EOL or no, there are many people who still use older OSes because they own older computers, can't afford an upgrade or don't want one (it works just fine!), and can't be bothered with figuring out running a newer OS on officially unsupported hardware. Case in point: I built a macOS app that implements Google's Nearby/Quick Share (an AirDrop-style file sharing thing on Android). Multiple people tried running it on Catalina and were disappointed that it wanted a newer OS. So I did end up backporting it to Catalina.
cnst 2y ago
I once used an old Mac OS X in order to extract a Cisco AnyConnect certificate from Keychain that wasn't possible to extract in any other way. https://reverseengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/6043/extract-non-extractable-private-key-from-os-x-keychain/6044#6044 https://reverseengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/6043/... I've first tried recompiling the Keychain app, but it had too many dependencies that were not trivial to build, so, using an older Mac, in that case, was the easiest way to get the private key from my own keychain.

trws 2y ago

CI is the big one, or similar testing against older versions for backwards compatibility. Usually good enough to just compile for it on MacOS, but sometimes we get a surprise in a third party library or something that only shows up on an older release.

deathhand 2y ago

Dev environments, and testing. Macs are the best at virtualizing macs.(look up hackintosh to see how many hoops must be jumped through on non mac hardware)

talldayo 2y ago
You don't need a Hackintosh to virtualize a Mac - you can actually download the MacOS image directly from Apple and boot it right into QEMU with the proper configuration. I've used a few scripts over the years that could have an OSX image running on Linux in less than 15 minutes.
- kelvinjps10 2y ago
  Any tutorial?
  - mmerlin 2y ago
    https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM https://github.com/Coopydood/ultimate-macOS-KVM https://github.com/Coopydood/ultimate-macOS-KVM https://github.com/notAperson535/OneClick-macOS-Simple-KVM https://github.com/notAperson535/OneClick-macOS-Simple-KVM https://github.com/topics/osx-kvm https://github.com/topics/osx-kvm

grishka 2y ago

If you're building macOS apps, it's common to want to test them on all system versions you support. Especially so considering Apple's attitude towards backwards compatibility.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
Are there any Macs that can run 13.4 but can't run 13.5?
- fwip 2y ago
  I don't think so, but no Mac before 2016 can run 13.x: https://everymac.com/systems/by_capability/maximum-macos-supported.html https://everymac.com/systems/by_capability/maximum-macos-sup...
  - wtallis 2y ago
    Virtualizing an older ARM version of macOS was never going to be sufficient to QA x86 applications running on older Intel Macs. For that, you'll always want real x86 hardware.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
alanfranz 2y ago
And yet Monterey is EOL. Very few apps still support it. I wonder if it's just something that wasn't tested exactly for that reason.
- grishka 2y ago
  EOL or no, there are many people who still use older OSes because they own older computers, can't afford an upgrade or don't want one (it works just fine!), and can't be bothered with figuring out running a newer OS on officially unsupported hardware. Case in point: I built a macOS app that implements Google's Nearby/Quick Share (an AirDrop-style file sharing thing on Android). Multiple people tried running it on Catalina and were disappointed that it wanted a newer OS. So I did end up backporting it to Catalina.

cnst 2y ago

I once used an old Mac OS X in order to extract a Cisco AnyConnect certificate from Keychain that wasn't possible to extract in any other way. https://reverseengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/6043/extract-non-extractable-private-key-from-os-x-keychain/6044#6044 https://reverseengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/6043/... I've first tried recompiling the Keychain app, but it had too many dependencies that were not trivial to build, so, using an older Mac, in that case, was the easiest way to get the private key from my own keychain.